Quagmire

This path has become a quagmire.
It’s like trudging through trenches.
Either side, brown bracken lies
dying or dead like rotting bodies.

I pass through fields
where bales have been bound.
The farmer gathered the hay
tied them and left them to rot
when the rains came.

There must hundreds
grouped in pairs in field after field.
I continue on past each sorrowful
couple following the mire.
A warning I do not heed.

I pause on a bridge listening
to the sound of the stream
as the water, pure and free,
cascades down the rocks
from the source high in the hills
into the sea where it will be lost
like me and my thoughts
diluted in the salty waves and swirl.

The Lesson

He pulled the legs off the robot
then asked me to fix it, upset
that it could no longer dance.

The legs dangled from wires
swinging back and forth
as he held it in his arms.

It beeped and played music
turning its head as he pressed
the buttons on the controller.

Its eyes flashed full of life
but it wouldn’t dance and he
liked it when it danced as he

joined in bending at the knees
swaying his hips in time flailing
his arms like squatting moths.

I’ll try super glue but I don’t know
if I can fix it. It’ll be a lesson learned
like when I spent hours building

a model aeroplane and pinned it
to the ceiling only for it to fall
and shatter into pieces and it was

my mother who swept them up,
put them in the bin then wrapped
her arms around me as I wept.